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COP24: strong agreement on increasing climate targets still missing

As the COP24 climate summit draws to a close, negotiators are still struggling to agree on a significant commitment to strengthen all countries’ climate pledges by 2020.

A draft of the decision to be adopted at the COP released late Thursday night by the Polish COP Presidency is lukewarm and incoherent. It does not include a clear commitment to strengthen all countries’ climate pledges by 2020 and to align the increased targets with the requirements of the IPCC 1.5°C report. It also does not give governments clear guidelines on how to implement this commitment at home, in time for the UN Secretary General summit in September 2019.

“We are deeply concerned as the text in its current form would not send a strong message to drastically increase emission cuts by 2020. We need a much stronger commitment, if we are to adequately respond to the landmark IPCC report and avoid the worst consequences of the climate breakdown. Two days ago the EU took a leadership role by committing to increase its own climate target by 2020. Now it can only win by convincing all other governments to do the same.”

Climate Action Network (CAN) Europe is Europe's leading NGO coalition fighting dangerous climate change. With over 150 member organisations from 35 European countries, representing over 1.700 NGOs and more than 40 million citizens, CAN Europe promotes sustainable climate, energy and development policies throughout Europe.